Water Quality

[brentnorm]

I have been doing water top ups in my tank with RO water. I just wanted to know if by doing this I am creating and shortages in minerals etc ?

[Singularity]

hi brentnorm, and welcome to TASA. What kind of setup do you have ? How ofetn do you do water changes ? If you do weekly water changes and use RO for top up i cant see that there will be a shortage of minerals at all, and it als depends on if you have plants in the tank that can use the minerals etc.

[brentnorm]

I have a 1.5 x 500 x 500 with mainly tetras. Don't do very frequent water changes but top up weekly. Run a canister filter with filter wool, a sponge and purigen.

[Henk Hugo]

between the purigen and the RO top up - yes there will be a mineral shortage in the water. do a nice 30% water change with normal tap water and watch your plants pearl :D

[brentnorm]

Thanks Henk. Is there nothing that I shoud add to the tank in the way of suplements?

[Henk Hugo]

nope :D

[brentnorm]

Thanks Henk. Could you recomend an LFS where I can buy good quality plants?

[Henk Hugo]

Panorama always gets nice plants in....

[brentnorm]

so why the blue light and RO? its not needed with FW :) RO is a HUGE waste and is actualy bad for fish if you dont add some of the minerals back. Remeber RO is completely stripped of everything.... fish needs minerals in the water to live...

This is STRANGE to read because in my thread WATER QUALITY I asked you this particular question and you said RO is fine and na additives are needed if I am using RO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brentnorm]

@ brentnorm : All those who successfully keep discus will tell you that RO is a must. You mix it with a bit of tap water to ensure that enough minerals are still present. The exact ratio will depend on the parameters of your tap water.

PM me if you have any further questions re. water quality - I'll be happy to help.

EDIT : Oh, and happy birthday to you! :birthday:

Thank you. I do not keep discus at all and only have a comunity tank with mainly tetras and recently asked the question as I have a marine tank too. So I should just add more tap water. Any beneficial additives I could add?

[Singularity]

This is STRANGE to read because in my thread WATER QUALITY I asked you this particular question and you said RO is fine and na additives are needed if I am using RO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You said you were topping up with RO, i assumed that you use tap water for water changes, sorry for the confusion.

[Henk Hugo]

Right - let me explain about the Western Cape water.... slowly...

Our water is extermely acid so the city council adds calcium carbonate to the water to raise the PH and the Alk. If you take a bucket of water, put an airstone in it, and let it run for and hour or 2 you will have oxydized the all the calcium carbonate out of the water. Hence the PH will drop to +- 6.5 or 6.

I run shells in all of my systems to keep the water buffered to a PH of 6.5 and have sucessfully spawn P. Leopoldi in normal tap water.

I also personally know guys that keep WILD discus and Altum angels in our tap water as well as rams, apistos etc.... all SOFT, ACID water fish....

Hence THERE IS NO NEED FOR AN RO UNIT IF YOU LIVE IN THE WESTERN CAPE.....

Up country they might need to mix 50/50 RO water to keep discus etc due to the dolomite underground....

[Andre]

@ brentnorm : All those who successfully keep discus will tell you that RO is a must. You mix it with a bit of tap water to ensure that enough minerals are still present. The exact ratio will depend on the parameters of your tap water.


Hi Delilah. I do agree with you that RO water can help you to get your water closer to what discus encounter in nature. However I also know quite a few aquarists who are very successful at keeping and breeding discus in normal tapwater. Our tapwater in the Western Cape is very soft and perfect for softwater fish like discus, angels and other amazonian and west african riverine fish. In fact, in some of my tanks I have to add some coral grit or crushed shells to make sure I dont have pH crashes.

Brent, I suggest you do a proper test of your water. At the last APSA meet Prof Dirk Bellstedt tested some of our tank's water and it was amazing to see how low the pH levels were. You might be getting your water from a different source with higher buffering levels, so it is important to first measure your kH and gH levels and then assess whether you need to dilute your tapwater with RO water.

[Singularity]

guys, that is exactly the point, nobody said that it couldnt be done (to raise/breed fish that need softer water in tapwater), we are just saying that OUR local water (NORTH WEST) is very hard etc, even if it has been in a tank for 2 weeks the ph still tests litle over 8. Thats the reason we use the RO filters to soften the water, if we had tap water like yours there would obviously not be an reason for using an RO unit ! It is not a must to have an RO unit, i would just recommend it to people that live in the same region as me, for i have seen that discus do not like our local tap water at all.

[Henk Hugo]

exactly - thats what is upsetting me here.... RO isnt NEEDED everywhere so users must stop being told that RO is a MUST.... its not a MUST... its a nice to have. you can soften your water with peat granuals, drift wood, rooibos etc....

[Andre]

I agree with you, even in the Western Cape RO water can be used to spawn difficult fish.

I was referring to Delilah's comment that "All those who successfully keep discus will tell you that RO is a must"